Preparing for analog capture

Premiere is sold with many video-capture cards, which usually include non-Premiere software written by the card manufacturer to control the specific card. Most video-capture card software is written so that its controls appear within Premiere for your convenience, even though much of the actual video processing happens in the card, outside of Premiere. This complex relationship between video-capture cards and Premiere can make it difficult to identify which part of the system is responsible for a particular option or problem. Adobe, as well as most capture card manufacturers, provides troubleshooting documents online that can help you determine if an option or problem you are working on belongs to or is caused by the video-capture card and its software, or Premiere. These online documents can also help you resolve technical issues you may encounter while using your capture card and Premiere. See the Adobe Premiere Web site (http://www.adobe.com/premiere) for links to troubleshooting resources. If the issue is traced to the video-capture card, see the documentation provided by the manufacturer or the manufacturer's Web site.

Most of the supported capture cards provide a settings file (preset) that you can select in Premiere's Load Project Settings dialog box. This preset automatically sets all capture settings for optimal support with your capture card. If your capture card provides a preset, Adobe recommends that you select it for projects in which you will capture clips or import captured clips, and that you do not change the capture settings in the Settings dialog box.

Most of the settings that control how a clip is captured from a camera or a deck are found in the Capture Settings section of the Project Settings dialog box. Settings vary depending on the selection for Capture Format. Available capture formats vary depending on the type of video-capture card installed. Premiere also provides some capture-related settings in the Scratch Disks and Device Control section of the Preferences dialog box. Open the Capture Settings or Preferences dialog boxes by clicking the appropriate Edit button in the Settings section of the Movie Capture window. (You may need to select Expand Window from the Movie Capture window menu to display the settings.)

To prepare for capturing analog video:

1 Specify the scratch disk for captured movies. See Setting up Premiere's scratch disks.

Note: The length of a captured clip may be limited by the file-size limits of your operating system. For more information, see File-size limitations.

2 Set up the video source. For QuickTime for Mac OS, choose Project > Project Settings > Capture, click Video, choose Source, and choose a video source from the Digitizer menu. For an editing mode provided with a video-capture card, see the documentation included with the video-capture card.

3 Carefully check other settings in the Capture panel (summarized below). -As noted in the following list, some capture settings are specific to a particular capture format.

Capture Format Select the file format for your video program. Changing the Capture Format changes the options available in the Capture Settings dialog box as well as in the dialog boxes that appear when you click the Video, Audio, and Advanced buttons.

Capture Video Select to enable video capture.

Size (QuickTime) Type the width and height of the digitized frame in pixels, and select Constrain to restrict the aspect ratio to 4:3. For Video for Windows capture, click Video to specify frame size.

Rate (Video for Windows) If available, choose a frame rate for digitizing video. For NTSC, choose 29.97 fps; for PAL and SECAM, choose 25 fps.

Video, Audio, Advanced, VFW Settings If available, click to set options provided by software that came with your video-capture hardware, usually including compression settings. Understanding these card-specific options is critical for successful capturing; see the documentation for your capture hardware.

Capture Audio Select to enable audio capture. For QuickTime capture, or if these options are not available, click Audio to specify audio settings. For Video for Windows capture, specify settings for Rate (the sample rate for digitizing audio used by your capture device), Format (the bit depth of digitized audio used by your capture device), and Type (the compression method for digitized audio). If you chose an Editing Mode other than QuickTime or Video for Windows, and Capture Audio settings are not available, they may be set by the software that came with your audio-capture hardware; click Audio or Advanced to specify audio settings. See Capturing analog audio and the documentation for your capture hardware.

Report Dropped Frames Select if you want Premiere to display a Get Properties window at the end of capture warning you that one or more frames were dropped.

Abort on Dropped Frames Select if you want Premiere to stop capturing automatically when at least one frame is lost as a clip is being digitized.

Capture Limit Select and type a time span (in seconds) to limit how much video you will allow Premiere to capture in a single capture session. See File-size limitations.

Preroll Time When capturing with device control, specify how far before the In point Premiere winds the tape before capture. The appropriate value varies depending on the kind of deck or camera you are using; see the documentation for your deck or camera.

Timecode Offset When capturing with device control, type the number of quarter frames to adjust the timecode stamped on the captured video so that it corresponds to the correct frame on the original tape. See Reading timecode from source video.

Log Using Reel Name When capturing with device control, select to use the reel name you specified in the Batch Capture list. For information about batch capturing, see Specifying batch-list settings.

To help determine the effect of your compression settings on the data rate of the captured video, use Premiere's Data Rate graph, as explained in Analyzing clip properties and data rate.

Capturing and Importing Source Clips > Preparing for analog capture